Metabolic pathways enriched according to ERG status are associated with biochemical recurrence in Hispanic/Latino patients with prostate cancer

Background The role of ERG-status molecular subtyping in prognosis of prostate cancer (PCa) is still under debate. In this study, we identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) according to ERG-status to explore their enriched pathways and implications in prognosis in Hispanic/Latino PCa patients. Methods RNA from 78 Hispanic PCa tissues from radical prostatectomies (RP) were used for RNA-sequencing. ERG(high)/ERG(low) tumor groups were determined based on the 1.5-fold change median expression in non-tumor samples. DEGs with a False Discovery Rate (FDR) < 0.01 and a fold change >2 were identified between ERG(high) and ERG(low) tumors and submitted to enrichment analysis in MetaCore. Survival and association analyses were performed to evaluate biochemical recurrence (BCR)-free survival. Results The identification of 150 DEGs between ERG(high) and ERG(low) tumors revealed clustering of most of the non-BCR cases (60%) into de ERG(high) group and most of the BCR cases (60.8%) in ERG(low) group. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed a worst BCR-free survival for ERG(low) patients, and a significant reduced risk of BCR was observed for ERG(high) cases (OR = 0.29 (95%CI, 0.10-0.8)). Enrichment pathway analysis identified metabolic-related pathways, such as the renin-angiotensin system and angiotensin maturation system, the linoleic acid metabolism, and polyamines metabolism in these ERG groups. Conclusions ERG(low) tumor cases were associated with poor BCR-free survival in our Hispanic/Latino patients, with metabolism-related pathways altered in the BCR progression. Impact Our findings suggest the need to dissect the role of diet, metabolism, and lifestyle as risk factors for more aggressive PCa subtypes.